The Sun’s suspended columnist and former editor, Kelvin MacKenzie, could be reported to the police for inciting hatred and violence towards Jeremy Corbyn, Labour sources have said, after he joked about the party leader being “knifed to death”.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, MacKenzie reportedly said: “I think the fake news headline that would give this country the most joy would be: ‘Jeremy Corbyn knifed to death by an asylum seeker’.”
The New York Times correspondent behind the interview, Katrin Bennhold, reveals in the article that MacKenzie sent her a text message urging her to tone down the quote.
She wrote: “The next morning, I got a text message from Mr MacKenzie: “Hi Katrin, Can you change that perfect headline from ‘Jeremy Corbyn knifed to death by asylum seeker’ to ‘Jeremy Corbyn defrauded by asylum seeker.’ In the light of Jo Cox murder mine is in tol (sic) poor taste.”
MacKenzie, 70, was referring to the murder of Jo Cox, Labour MP Batley and Spen, at the hands of a far-right terrorist in June 2016.
He is suspended from the Sun after last month in his column he compared the mixed-race Everton footballer Ross Barkley to a gorilla.
Labour sources expressed outrage at the comments and suggested he might have committed a criminal offence.
“Kelvin MacKenzie’s disgusting language incites violence and hatred and makes him unfit to work for any media outlet,” a source close to Corbyn said. “This sort of disgusting language should not be tolerated by anyone in the media, politics or any walk of life.
“We saw last year how overheated language in politics led to the murder of Jo Cox. Kelvin Mackenzie could find himself reported to the police for inciting hatred and violence against the leader of the opposition.”
A Sun executive told the Guardian he found MacKenzie’s comments “disgusting”.
The dust has yet to settle on the controversy over MacKenzie’s remarks about Barkley. In the column, MacKenzie claimed he was not surprised the midfielder, whose grandfather is Nigerian, was punched in a nightclub because he was similar to an animal in a zoo.
MacKenzie said he had been unaware of Barkley’s heritage and that to describe the article as racist was “beyond parody”. The Sun apologised.
Liverpool football club banned Sun reporters from matches at Anfield and press conferences at Melwood in February owing to the paper’s coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.
MacKenzieoversaw the publication of the notorious “The Truth” front page, which claimed Liverpool fans had picked the pockets of dead supporters and urinated on police.
Those claims were found to be baseless at the Hillsborough inquests, which recorded that the 96 fans were unlawfully killed and that the Liverpool supporters who attended the FA Cup semifinal played no role in causing the tragedy.
MacKenzie’s column on Barkley was published a day before the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster.
